[tlug] Openness of Papillon

[Jim <jep200404@example.com>]

Michael Engel wrote:

> The access 

access (ala Google?) or source code? 
Papillon's statement seems poorly worded. 

> will be free of charge for non commercial use 

Which usually implies not free for commercial use. Bummer. 

> (Open Source license). 

This may or may not be so. It deserves scrutiny. 

The notice on the web page says: 

  (c) 2001-2003 Mathieu Mangeot, NII & Gilles S?rasset, GETA-CLIPS. All rights reserved.

Bugger! That doesn't sound very open. 

I found a license at: 

   http://www.papillon-dictionary.org/ConsultInformations.po?docid=1427055&docLang=eng

It doesn't get off to a good start. The first sentence seems to confuse 
subject and object. I don't see the license listed at 
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/

 2. a) says: The modified work must itself be a dictionary data.

so if one finds a nice new novel use for the data, 
one may not distribute it. That does not sound very open. 

Section 3 allows one to opt to redistribute under GPL. 
That sounds much more open. I'm relieved. 
Nonetheless, their license deserve further scrutiny. 
It's too bad they didn't use an OSI license.